20 Best Christmas Horror Movies You NEED To Watch
13. The Children
Much as children are often the imperiled ones in Christmas horror films, Tom Shankland's 2008 Brit horror The Children comes at it from another angle entirely. Here, a virus turns all children into feral murderers over the Christmas holidays - a dizzying feat of counter-programming for anyone stupefied by the season's glut of sappy, sentimental family-friendly fare.
Even with an obviously low budget, Shankland does a fantastic job of exploiting the unhinged central setup, both in terms of wild death scenes and the sheer off-putting strangeness of our heroes being forced to kill children. From the gnarly, creative deaths to the chilly setting and central performances of the ensemble both young and adult, The Children is a cult British gem that deserves to be far better known.
It would've been easy for a film this provocatively premised to shy away from the violence, but Shankland thankfully does the total opposite, and the result is one of the most bewilderingly twisted horrors of the 2000s.